Urahara's Warning
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: Even as Rukia realises that she has pulled Ichigo too far into her own world, the eyes of Soul Society begin to turn towards him, including those of a certain shopkeeper. A series of shorts based on the story of Bleach from Rukia's point of view. 9
1. Chapter 1

The school was buzzing. A gaggle of the girls, Orihime included, had cornered Rukia early in the morning and had convinced her that the thing she must do, the thing that would most please Ichigo in the world, was to cross her arms over her chest and shout 'bwahahaha' in his face. Everyone was doing it. Her classmates were screaming with laughter. The whole affair seemed to be, in some way, connected with the visit of a nobleman to their town or, at least, that was how Rukia understood it.

When Ichigo arrived, she followed Orihime's advice, crossed her arms and shouted 'bwahahaha!' It hadn't occurred to her that at least ten others from the class had got to him before her. He did, however, pause and stare before sliding his schoolbag onto the desk:

"You too?" he asked. Her smile wavered slightly:

"Everyone's doing it."

"I'm not." He slumped down at his desk.

The noble was, it transpired, someone called Don Kanonji. Something that began as a rash of strange behaviour at school became a string of invitations. Suddenly everyone in the class was readying themselves for a festival. Ichigo too, despite his objections. His father and sisters were attending, so he agreed to accompany them and, as the evening of the fete approached, Rukia couldn't help but get caught up in the excitement.

The events of that day at the cemetary were still with her. Though she wanted to forget them, one thing that had remained with her was the haunted look that Ichigo had worn when, at the last, he'd asked her to make him stronger. She was no expert in such things, but she was fairly certain that a human, particularly one so young as him, should not have to carry a burden like that: knowledge of another world, the balance of life and death. She had intended only to teach him the things he needed to fulfil her duties temporarily, but it was quite another thing to witness a change in him that meant his whole focus was turned upon her world. And it was a change. His initial reticence to help her had been replaced by a burning hunger for more knowledge. Sometimes it felt as if he didn't really see her any more, as if his eyes were focussed on something far away from them both, and the transformation frightened her.

It was no different tonight. He was distracted and didn't notice her until he nearly stumbled onto her in the crowd gathered for the festival. She turned and was disappointed to see his face drop: "Oh, Rukia, what are you doing here?"

"I thought it would be fun," she said. It didn't sound very convincing, so she added: "Orihime invited me."

"So you're not on duty?"

"Soul reaping isn't everything. You should take a break sometimes, Ichigo."

"That's rich, coming from you," he said under his breath and she missed the rest of his comment as a cheer went up from the crowd.

"This is exciting!" she said, raising her voice.

"Rukia, do you even know what's going on?"

"It's a party."

"You came here and you don't even know what this is."

While they waited for the celebrations to begin, Ichigo explained to her that they were filming a TV show. Don Kanonji was not nobility; he was a TV personality, a celebrity psychic, and they were filming here at the old hospital because it was supposed to be haunted. He studied her face for a reaction, but she dug her heels in. Short of some kind of emergency, they were damn well taking the evening off:

"Don't worry. If there are any spirits here, we can perform _khonso _later. Let's just watch for now."

Ichigo scowled and stuffed his hands into his pockets. It was clear from the steel in her expression that he'd somehow lost an argument that had never got off the ground.

The show began with run-of-the-mill warm up acts: idiot comedians contrasted with a sensible woman reporter whose goal seemed to be to instill the fear of god into the audience. The hospital was haunted, she said, by a murderous spirit that cried out at night. Almost on cue, something did, indeed, begin to howl. Ichigo looked about to see if anyone else could hear it, but the only one who looked back at him was Rukia. He stiffened:

"A hollow."

"Relax," she said, lifting her voice over a resounding cheer at the arrival of Don Kanonji in a helicopter. No expenses spared. Ichigo didn't even seem to notice; his whole body was taut as a coiled spring and his eyes were fixed in the direction from which the howl had come. "You've heard hollows hundreds of times, Ichigo. Their cries chill your blood. Your instincts should tell you that's not a hollow."

"What is it then?"

"A spirit." She took his hand and started to lead him through the crowd. Away from the stage and to the side of the hospital there were fewer people and they were able to see the source of the noise. Rukia recognised the spirit's predicament at once.

Souls of the living were connected to their bodies by a silver chain. At least, that was how it appeared to her eyes. In death, the chain was cut, but its broken end was often still visible, protruding from the chest of wandering souls. In contrast, hollows had no such chain. At the point where it should have connected to their body, just above the heart, there was only a hole through their chest. Hence the name. Hollow.

The spirit of the old hospital, though clearly outraged by the crowds, was nevertheless still only a soul. One that was in a terminal state of decline. The silver chain that sprouted from its chest was wound round and about the support struts of the building, through the windows and over the roof. When it moved, the chain tightened, pulling open a flap of skin on its chest. "Some spirits are so attached to this world that they become earthbound," Rukia explained: "Something that happened in life is keeping them here. Unfinished business, if you like. If we leave him this way, he will eventually become a hollow. We should perform _khonso." _Ichigo nodded and she winced at his eagerness: "But we'll do it later."

The crowd was starting to surge around them, separating them. Rukia found herself at the front, up against a steel barrier. From where she was, she could see Ichigo, head and shoulders above a number of boys from his peer group, searching for her. She smiled and raised a hand to let him know where she was.

As soon as the show began, she became aware that Kanonji had sme degree of psychic ability. He knew where the spirit was. He walked straight towards it: an extravagant figure with dreadlocks and a bright red cape over a blue suit with a fur lining. Atop his hooked nose, he wore sunglasses though it was, by now, at least two hours after sunset. When he spoke, it was directly to the enchained soul, and that was when she began to feel uneasy:

"Time for you to pass on. Feel the strength of my spirit cane!" he entoned.

"It's okay," she whispered to herself: "There's no way that thing is going to turn into a hollow any time soon. The only way it could do that would be if someone were to mess with the hole in its" –

But, even as the thought occurred to her, Kanonji reached forward with the wooden cane he carried and thrust it into the spirit's chest. It howled in pain.

He was trying to exorcise it, she realised. He actually believed that, by opening the hole and detatching the chain, he was doing it a favour. He probably didn't even know what hollows were. But, with thousands of people gathered here, she had to do something: "Ichigo!" she cried.

Ichigo, who had been watching in discomfort, torn between her reassurances and his own instincts, needed no more than this. She could hear the complaints of the crowd as he pushed through. She scrambled over the steel barrier herself and started to run towards him, pulling on Urahara's glove as she did so. As a _shinigami, _Ichigo would be invisible. He would be able to prevent this where she would not.

She was within five paces of him when several burly security staff fell on her and, with the least grace possible, tackled her to the ground. Through a tangle of arms and legs, most of which seemed to be pinning her down, she witnessed Ichigo suffer the same fate. Unlike her, though, he was able to put up a fight of sorts, kicking out at one man and elbowing another in the ribs. Someone in the crowd was reaching over the barrier with a walking cane. It was only when the cane struck Ichigo in the middle of the forehead and his body went limp that Rukia realised what she was seeing.

Ichigo's soul stepped free of his body. He turned once to check where she was, which was somewhere under the security guards, and then he began to sprint away in the direction of the howling spirit. Relieved, Rukia allowed herself to be dragged back behind the barrier.

The other security personnel stared in consternation at Ichigo's suddenly unconscious form.

"Thank you. I'll take care of this." That was Tessai. Rukia knew him as the shop assistant from Urahara's store. He had crossed the barrier and was looming over the guards, a man well over six feet in height, with sunglasses and a jaw like a brick. Across the shoulders, he was easily as broad as two of them put together and they parted before him like ripples on a pond. Rukia watched as he gathered up Ichigo's body then turned and marched back into the crowd, which churned around him.

Urahara was at her shoulder, swinging his walking cane. Rukia felt herself flush. She'd not intended to act so rashly; leastways, not in front of him. Urahara was part of that other world, that other life she was learning to distrust:

"What are you doing here?"

"I thought you could use my help, Kuchiki-_dono," _he said innocently.

Perhaps she was imagining it, but the way he stood over her; it was almost as if he meant to protect her. She felt affronted. Ichigo was perfectly capable of protecting her. But that wasn't it. She was meant to be able to protect herself.

As she watched, Don Kanonji succeeded in separating the spirit from the chain that bound it to the building. She winced, hoping that Ichigo would realise what had happened. The form of the ghost had changed, faded. Ichigo halted beside Don Kanonji. The psychic turned and shouted something at him, but Ichigo ignored him, concentrating on the spot where the ghost had been. Good. She could feel the tension inside him. When he was anxious like this, inadvertantly or otherwise, he was able to increase his _reiatsu_ and she felt it like the warmth from a distant fire. Urahara, in contrast, kept his spiritual pressure in check, but she could feel them both now and, in turn, they would both be able to feel her, she knew.

Ichigo ran towards the hospital.

It was an instant later that she felt a third spiritual pressure; this one was dark, oily and repugnant: the_ reiatsu _of a hollow. The ghost had remanifested on the other side of the hospital. Should she go? Should she try to follow Ichigo as he jogged around the side of the building? A hand touched her shoulder: "I came here for him too."

"What?" she snapped. She was jumpy, defensive around the shopkeeper who stared amiably at her with those deceptively kind eyes:

"I wanted to see this boy. Relax, Kuchiki-_dono. _You can still feel him, can't you? Your powers are not yet so weak as to prevent that." She bit down hard. He knew then. He knew how little _reiatsu _she now had left, that it was draining from her day by day. "I thought so," he said, taking her silence as assent: "Then you have no need to see him with your _gigai's _eyes. We will know if anything happens to him. Don't become reliant on your human senses, Kuchiki-_dono. _Remember who you are."


	2. Chapter 2

She closed her eyes.

Gradually, her awareness of the human world faded. The cold of the railings beneath her fingers and the sounds of the crowd all around, they were replaced by the overlay of a world more familiar to her, the world of spirits, of streaming energies and the small yet infinitely bright points of human souls, making a starfield out of the darkness.

Yet her instincts were failing her. All this she saw as through tarnished glass. Where once it had been clear and present, it seemed to her, now, to be a distant vision. Fear wormed its way into her gut. What if her powers were gone? Completely gone? These were the last vestiges of what she had been. When they were gone too, what would be left? Something neither human nor _shinigami._

Concentrate.

Since the day she'd met Ichigo and recognised that his _reiatsu _was of such a strength that it muffled her senses, she had become accustomed to it, accustomed to looking past it to sense the other souls, human and hollow. So accustomed, in fact, that it seemed now to be a part of her, burned into her mind. That wasn't so surprising. Part of what she was sensing within him was her own powers.

Now, though, she made herself concentrate fully on the traces of his energy. At her side, Urahara was another source of vast _reiatsu, _but, where Urahara's energy was like a flat lake, Ichigo's ebbed and flowed with his emotions. She had no psychic link with him, but, by the fluctuations in his energy, she could sense his moods as he fought. Fear. Anger. Relief. It was hard not to tense with him, but, when she did, she heard Urahara say her name, and that was enough for her to check herself. Urahara would be sensing her own _reiatsu _slong with Ichigo's. he would start to suspect the emotional investment she had in the human boy, if he hadn't guessed it already.

Ichigo was inside the building. For a time, his _reiatsu _was a wild tide, rising and falling; at times, seeming to peak even higher than Urahara's, though Rukia knew that to be impossible. "He has no control," said the shopkeeper at her side. She dared not open her eyes for fear of losing her fragile grasp on the spirit realm. But she nodded in agreement. "Dangerous, Kuchiki-_dono. _Dangerous." Yes, she wanted to answer. But that doesn't give you the right to destroy him.

She sensed Urahara's curiosity and opened her eyes. The man was looking at her sideways, his smiling façade replaced by an expression of genuine concern that stoked her anger:

"I don't need you to tell me my duties and I don't need you to protect me."

"Is that so?" he asked softly.

"Ichigo is perfectly capable of handling that hollow. Even if I don't have my powers" –

"Ah." His eyes twinkled as he turned and smiled at her: "Perhaps we're not entirely clear about what I am protecting you from."

His smile chilled her to the bone.

The battle, she realised, was over. She could no longer feel the cloying _reiatsu _of the hollow. The crowd cheered as Don Kanonji appeared, waving at them from the top of the hospital. He had led the cameramen on a merry trail of destruction through the building. No doubt their equipment would have picked up those elements of the battle visible to human eyes: doors opening and closing, dust raining from the ceiling, footsteps and voiceless screams. It would have made a good show. She spotted Ichigo standing a little behind Don Kanonji, his sword slung casually over one shoulder. It was probably too far away for him to be able to see her, but perhaps he sensed her the way she sensed him. She let herself smile.

When she looked back at Urahara though, he was already gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**If you enjoyed this story, please check my profile page for the next in the series . It lists them in order so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. Thanks!**


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